On a Cloud

A friend of mine recently posted a gym selfie. She shared that she was trying to get used to regularly working out again. I told her that I had been out of the workout thing for a while, but I knew I had to get back into it. We both agreed that we were at an age when we needed to make sure that we kept ourselves strong and healthy. This is a crucial period where we need to make fitness our priority. We need to make sure that we can be strong and healthy when we reach our senior years.

A few years ago my doctor said that given my health and fitness level, my life expectancy was not that favorable. That was a scary wake-up call that got me back into a fitness lifestyle. I started working out regularly and went on a diet. I lost a significant amount of weight and I am healthier than I was back then. It’s an accomplishment that I am very happy with. I know I still have a long way to go as far as weight loss and fitness are concerned. Still, I am glad that I was able to turn it around for myself and get on the road to becoming healthier.

What did I do to lose the weight? I worked out for at least 30 minutes every day. I went on a calorie deficit by doing intermittent fasting. From someone who used to have high blood sugar from being overweight, I was able to bring it down to normal. From having a high resting heart rate, it has now reached the lower spectrum of what's normal. I look better now. My face became smaller and I could wear smaller clothes again. But my proudest achievement was that I felt healthier than I had ever been in a long time.

Getting fit and strong is a bit of a challenge for me because of some health issues I have. Some are congenital, and some are chronic issues that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life. Knowing the balance of activities I can do to be healthier is a bit of a slippery slope. I have to make sure that my existing conditions do not result in complications while I'm on this journey. It’s a tough balance. I have to do what’s right to be healthy and make sure that what I’m doing doesn’t make me sick if that makes any sense.

That being said, my health journey has not been easy. Apart from having to find that balance, I also needed to know what I wanted out of this experience. I used to focus just on weight loss, but not on overall fitness. These days, it is more about fitness. It’s about feeling stronger and healthier is my priority, not the number on the scale. I find that when I focus on my weight, I tend to lose motivation if I think I am not reaching the numbers I wanted. But now that I am concentrating on feeling healthier, it’s a different story.

I pay more attention to how I feel rather than what I weigh. If my clothes fit better, if I feel like I have more energy and I feel stronger, that for me is a good indicator. Admittedly, I have been disappointed in myself recently because I feel like I have let myself go a bit. But I also know that the important thing is that I recognized that I need to step up my game and do better. Any setback is an opportunity for me to get back out there and try again. I’m going to get back in it slowly, and then try to step it up even further as I go along. I hope that I can keep this up so I can reach my health and fitness goals.

This year, I look forward to making more significant steps to becoming healthier. I’m going to reach a significant age milestone in a few years and I want to be as healthy as I can be when I celebrate it. I want to make this something that I’m doing not just to reach my fitness goals. I want it to be something that I incorporate into my life and make it a part of what I do regularly for the rest of my life. After all, we only have one life to live, and I believe it’s time that I took better care of it!